Control of Sulfur in Melts: Part One

خلاصات:

Sulfur has a strong surface activity both in binary (Fe-S) and ternary (Fe-C-S, Fe-Si-S) alloys. It has been concluded from the results of numerous studies that sulfur can exist in two forms in molten iron: in one case it forms an interstitial solutions, and in other partially substitutional solutions. It has been found that the activity of sulfur increase substantially when carbon and silicon are present in the melt. This explains why pig iron can be desulfurized more readily than steel.

Sulfur (S) is a typical metalloid. The radius of sulfur atom is 1.05 Å. It easily acquires two electrons to form an ion S2-.
The coefficient of diffusion of sulfur in liquid iron is 0.74x10-4, 13x10-4, 1.9x10-5 cm/s, according to various
experimental data. Sulfur has a strong surface activity both in binary (Fe-S) and ternary (Fe-C-S, Fe-Si-S) alloys. It has been concluded from
the results of numerous studies that sulfur can exist in two forms in molten iron: in one case it forms an interstitial solution, and in other
partially substitutional solutions. It has been found that the activity of sulfur increase substantially when carbon and silicon are present in
the melt. This explains why pig iron can be desulfurized more readily than steel.

A good understanding of the desulphurization of hot metal and liquid steel has been developed in terms of slag-metal reactions, based on a number
of studies of the partition of sulfur between liquid slag and liquid iron. These results show that a highly basic slag, high temperature and reducing
conditions enhance desulphurization via slag-metal reactions.

Sulfur Equilibrium between Liquid Iron and Slag

The desulphurization of liquid iron with slag may be examined on the basis of the following reaction (1), in which the equilibrium constant can be
expressed by equation (2).

[S] + (O2-) = (S2-) + [O] .......... (1)

log K1 = as2-. ao / as. ao2- .......... (2)

where,

ao, as: the activities of oxygen and sulfur in liquid iron, respectively

ao2-, as2-: the activities of oxygen and sulfur ions in slag, respectively.

The sulfur partition ratio between metal and slag is given by equation (3) according to reaction (1).

Since the values of K1, ao2- and fs2- cannot be determined experimentally, the sulfide
capacity is defined as equation (5) on the basis of reaction (4) and is utilized for the examination of desulphurization in iron and steel making processes.

½ S2 + (O2-) = (S2-) + ½ O2 .......... (4)

CS = (wt%S) • (PO2 / Ps)½ = K4 ao2- / fs2- .......... (5)

where,

PO2 and Ps are the oxygen and sulfur partial pressure in atm;

K4 the equilibrium constant of reaction (4).

In order to calculate the value of CS, the equilibrium constants of reactions (6) and (7) are substituted into equation (5), and equation (8) is obtained.

½ O2 = [O] .......... (6)

½ S2 = [S] .......... (7)

log Cs = log (wt % S) ao / as + 936 / T-1.375 .......... (8)

By the use of the interaction coefficients of sulfur and oxygen in liquid iron, the values of CS can be calculated from equation (8).

As an illustration, the calculation of sulfide capacity (CS) has been given for CaO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2 ladle slags.

In order to examine the relationship between CS and composition of slag, the following relationship is assumed to hold at certain temperatures.

Ni, Ki: the mole fraction and the lime equivalent coefficient of i-component in the slag phase, respectively.

At 1600°C, the values of KMgO, KAl2O3 and KSiO2 determined by trial and error are 0.1, -0.8 and -1.0, respectively.
As shown in Figure 1, there are linear relations between log Cs and (NCaO + 0.1 NMgO – 0.8 NAl2O3 – NSiO2)
at 1575, 1600 and 1650°C.

The three lines obtained by the method of least squares are shown in the figure. The intercepts of the lines were determined by the use of the slope at 1600°C
because the most runs were done at this temperature. The following equation was obtained as a function of temperature.

It was verified by them that fi can be expressed by the Pauling's electronegativity xi as follows:

fi =1.36 (xi -0.26) .......... (14)

It was also found by Duffy and Ingram that log CS are linearly correlated to the theoretical optical basicity.

As an illustration of the above mentioned the experimental results performed on ladle CaO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2 slags has been given.
The values of log CS are plotted against the optical basicities at 1575, 1600 and 1650°C, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Plot of log CS against theoretical optical basicity Λ

The slopes and intercepts of the lines were determined by the method of least squares, and the following linear relationship was obtained as a function of temperature.

log CS = 14.20Λ - 9 894 / T -7.55 .......... (15)

As described above, it can be seen that both the sum of lime equivalent and the optical basicity are able to be used as parameters for the representation
of sulfide capacity. From the relationship between these two parameters, the linear equation (16) from regression was obtained.

Λ = 0.24(NCaO + 0.1NMgO – 0.8NAl2O3 – NSiO2) + 0.67 .......... (16)

The correlation coefficient (R) is larger than 0.99, and the standard deviation (σ) is smaller than 0.01. This shows that the two parameters have almost
the same character for the representation of sulfide capacity of slag.

Equilibrium of Oxygen Partition between Metal and Slag

It is well known that the oxygen potential exerts a large influence on the sulfur partition between metal and slag. The equilibrium of reaction (17) was determined
by the use of the value of the equilibrium constant (18) reported in literature.

The above equation can conveniently be used for the estimation of the sulfur partition between liquid iron and slag in which the oxygen content in liquid
iron is not analyzed. Next, the values of γFeO calculated from the equation (19) were arranged by the way similar to that described previously,
and the following relationship was obtained.

Figure 3: Comparison of the observed log [wt%O] with calculated log [wt%O] from the equation (20)